Understanding the terms and technologies in the mobile security market can be a daunting and difficult task. The mobile ecosystem is changing at a very rapid pace, causing vendors to pivot their product direction to meet the needs of the enterprise. These changes in direction are creating a merging and twisting of technology descriptions being used by sales and marketing of the vendor offerings. What we considered “Mobile Device Management” yesterday has taken on shades of containerization and virtualization today.

Mobile antivirus used to be a standalone vision but has rapidly become a piece of the mobile endpoint security market. Where do we draw the lines, and how do we clearly define the market and products that the enterprise requires to secure their mobile environment?

In an attempt to help the enterprise S&R professional understand the overlapping descriptions of mobile security products, I am working on new research that will help organize and quantify the market. Understanding the detailed state of each of the technology offerings in the market, and their potential impact on a five- to 10-year horizon, will help enterprises make more-educated purchasing decisions.

To begin the process of covering all of the technologies being offered today, I’ve divided the solutions in the space by technology type. Not only am I analyzing technologies that are available now, but I’m also researching any additional products, services, and vendors in the mobile security space that have innovative new concepts that they are bringing to bear. These new-age offerings will help shape the future of mobile security, and we need to get ahead of the concepts now if we wish to have a better understanding of the impact of the innovation.